


Expired

by petcheetah



Series: August Prompts 2019 [14]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 12:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20242729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petcheetah/pseuds/petcheetah
Summary: expire/ɪkˈspʌɪə,ɛkˈspʌɪə/verbpast tense: expired; past participle: expired1.(of a document, authorization, or agreement) come to the end of the period of validity.2.(of a person) dieFive looks over the path leading back to his family, and hopes that he isn’t too late.





	Expired

Five was used to the Commission doing fucked up things in order to get people to join them. It was how he had come to join them, it was how over half of the employees at the Commission had joined. He had been asked to recruit new people across the years, and it was easy to see the way that they had been chosen. The recruits had always already been broken by the time that the Commission dropped by. It was always easiest to get them to agree when they had nothing left to lose.

The one thing that kept Five going through his years of working with the Commission had been the idea of one day going back and saving his family from the future he had seen befall them. There were days when he thought that there was nothing left for him, where he couldn’t help but wonder if he would even be able to stop the apocalypse in the first place. After all, he had no real clues except for the eye, and he knew that his family had never been the most cooperative bunch. But he had to latch onto something for the day his contract with the Commission finally expired. He needed something to keep him going, because if he didn’t have that he would just become another one of the Handler’s lackies that no longer knew how to think for themselves, who only saw the mission as the one thing left in their lives. Whatever it took, whether it be lying to himself over and over that he hadn’t gone crazy in all his time alone or just acting out every now and again to prove he still could, he needed proof that he was still the Five who had left his family behind all those years ago.

Inside himself, behind the facade that he had created to fool even himself, he knew that that Five had long since died.

He had a few more years until his contract expired, and then he would be given free range onto where he wanted to retire to. To most, retiring was an impossible concept. To Five, it was one he knew he needed to make sure he never experienced. The closer it got to the expiry date, the less of a chance he had of ever reaching his siblings. All of the Commissions ‘retiring spots’ were in areas that even the most formidable of people couldn’t time travel away from.

But his notebook was full, and the Commission was none the wiser.

A few years away from the expiry date of his contract, a completely different man from when he left, Five was prepared to go home.


End file.
